1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to refrigeration equipment, and more particularly, to a configurable refrigerator composed of a control box and at least one cooling unit that can be easily assembled and disassembled, wherein the number of the cooling unit and the positional arrangement of the control box and the cooling unit(s) are adjustable. Moreover, a control panel of the configurable refrigerator can be settled on any one of the control box and the cooling unit(s) at a user's will.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional refrigerators are usually unmodifiable combinations of single-door modules, French-door modules and/or drawer modules. Once the conventional refrigerators are fabricated and sold, it is impossible for users to reconfigure these modules, to remove some of the combined modules or add some more modules. Thus, in order to satisfy various consumers, every model of the conventional refrigerators must be manufactured in several door types, although not all of them are needed by the consumers. Besides, the conventional refrigerators usually have relatively large capacity, which means not only increased volume, weight and manufacturing costs, but also potential waste of energy. And yet the conventional refrigerators can never really satisfy every consumer's need. On the other hand, when people want to replace their current small refrigerators with new larger ones, disposition of the small refrigerators would be a problem. Furthermore, on certain special occasions, such as holidays, family reunions or having guests, one may temporarily need more refrigeration space. However, it is a waste of resources and space to prepare in advance a larger refrigerator only for such rare occasions.